MSI GS70 2pe Stealth Pro Notebook

The MSI GS70 2PE Stealth Pro holds bragging rights as the world’s thinnest and lightest 17-inch gaming notebook, measuring a mere 21.8mm (0.9mm less than the Aorus X7 v2) thick and positively featherlight at 2.66kg. We had to constantly remind ourselves that this was a massive 17- inch gaming system.

Its sexy frame is not the only feature you can show off to your friends; it also comes with a rainbow LED backlit keyboard that’ll get heads turning in your direction. Specs-wise, it’s no slouch with a 4th Generation Intel Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M GPU. Like the Aorus X7 v2, the GS70 2PE Stealth Pro allows you to configure up to three mSATA drives in RAID 0 along with a standard HDD for additional storage.

Apart of pure specs, which are pretty much similar across the board, MSI tries to lure gamers in with gaming-specific feature collaborations. For example, they’ve got a SteelSeries ‘tuned’ keyboard. While the Aorus X7 v2 provided four dedicated macro buttons, the MSI GS70 allows you to program every single key (aside from the function keys) as macros. If you’re a serious multi-tasker, you can even save different key configuration overlays that are switchable on-the-fly. Other welcome tweaks include moving the Windows key to the right and having enlarged Ctrl and Alt keys.

Besides SteelSeries optimizations for the keyboard, the GS70 has DynaAudio double front-facing speakers. By notebook standards, they actually enhance both sound stage and audio levels. Audio was hugely satisfying with the Windows volume slider set to around 28 (Max. 100). By comparison, both the Aorus and Aftershock only achieved similar impact after cranking the volumes to 50.

One thing that we felt was compromised in the pursuit of thinness was the placement of ports. Both the Aftershock and Aorus had more practicality in terms of where ports go and how cables may interfere with using the notebook. In MSI’s case for example, the GS70 has its adapter port somewhere midway on the right side. To us, this felt a little unnatural as the protruding power plug interfered with my mousepad territory. I assume lefties would have no problem with this though. Related models Asus TX201LA Transformer Book Trio 2-in-1 Touchscreen Laptop read more.